Harden not your hearts: softening as God’s way and maybe mine
Photo credit: Fr. Darryl Millette
Softeningis a curious thing. We soften water, counteracting metals and mineralsthat stain and damage our clothing. We soften edges, to prevent slivers andinjuries. We soften butter, to stop it from tearing through bread. So manyseasons of Lent I have heard the echoes of God’s call: “Harden not your hearts”(Hebrews 3:15). Only this week did it occur to me that the opposite of hardenis soften. And what does it mean to soften a heart, anyway?
Itseems intuitive, rather than purely logical, that hardness is undesirable. Hardthings become brittle and easily broken. To be hard is to be difficult, rigid,unmoving. Hardened arteries threaten to stop our beating hearts. Softening,however, does not feel like the virtuous opposite to me. It feels weak anddefeated. Softening is what is happening while I give in to eating donuts andhave too many children to fight all the battles – or any at all.
Butthis battle between avoiding a hard and rigid heart and resigned indifferenceis surely not what the season of Lent (specifically) and the pursuit of God(more broadly) is all about? There hasto be more to it than this.
Ihave been reflecting on the way that God has been at work in me over three anda half decades. A startling realization hit me in the silence that sofrequently occupies the place where God used to speak to me: God is simultaneouslyrelentless and gentle. All the tenacity of iron and steel is wrapped up withthe desire to set us free.
Whatif softening isn’t giving up, but is instead a bending towards God’s “stillmore excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31)?
Ikeep discovering a God who keeps asking me to take just one more step towardlove. Even when I am so exhausted that I cannot imagine how I will rise if onemore tiny voice calls my name in the night. When I want to return hurt with hurt. Especially when I have failedagain to get ready to leave the house without being kind to my family.
It isa soft ask, this call of God’s. He does not break the door down and give a metime out. Never once has the Spirit broke open the heavens and forced me to dothe right thing. For as long as it takes for me to hear, God whispers with that“still small voice” (1 Kings 12:19). Even when the lesson takes me decades ofpractice to begin to learn, God’s heart is a soft place for me to land.
Whatif softness is the way of God?
Whatif a softened heart isn’t different from the water, the edges, the butter. Eachof these things, so much a part of ordinary living, is softened to prevent itspower from doing damage. Each is softened to allow its essence to be a gift.
Myheart gets hardened in a thousand tiny ways, each almost imperceptible inordinary moments. I feel hurt and choose to assume intentionality. I justify myown bad behavior while demanding good manners from my children. Framing the daywith all or nothing thinking, I stop trying. And all of this sharpens my edges,inflicts damage on myself and my people, tears through the vulnerable places.Violent self talk, restrictive plans for self-improvement, nurturing guilt anddespair: these are the habits of a hardened heart.
In God’s extraordinarily soft way, He asks me not to harden my heart, but will not harden His approach if I don’t listen.
Softnesscomes from the same small and abundant moments. I can hear the truth in adifficult conversation and choose to let everything else go. Carried by a deepbreath and a grace that comes from somewhere beyond me, I say sorry and ask ifI can start over. I set down the laundry and the dishes and climb into a bathand remember that people whose dirty dishes and laundry wait are God’s belovedchildren too. A soft heart feels its power and its potential and refuses to leteither do damage.
Softening, I am coming to believe, is a much more difficult way. The warning is warranted. A soft heart is patient and kind, honest and attentive, faithful and free. Softness can catch and lift, bend and challenge, forgive and begin again.
O God, soften my heart this Lent.